The last morning of swimming at the 2017 World University Games featured only four events as swimming will wrap up from Taipei on Saturday night. Sarah Koehler and Aleksandr Osipenko are the top seeds for their individual events tonight as each of the four finals was separated by a small margin based on the prelim times. The United States and Brazil are the top seeds in each relay leading into tonight.
Today’s Events:
- Women’s 400 Free
- Men’s 400 IM
- Women’s 4×100 Medley Relay
- Men’s 4×100 Medley Relay
Women’s 400 Free
Germany’s Sarah Koehler swam the fastest 400 free of the morning with a 4:11.28 as the top four came from her prelim heat. Koehler, USA’s Sierra Schmidt (4:11.30), Italy’s Simona Quadarella (4:11.48) and USA’s Kaersten Meitz (4:11.78) paced the morning heats as they battled it out in the final preliminary heat.
Quadarella has already won the 800 and 1500 free events as she will be looking for the hat trick to complete the distance triple. Kohler was silver in both the 800 and 1500 and will be itching to get the gold medal.
Australia’s Kiah Melverton (4:12.33), Bahamas’ Joanna Evans (4:12.52), Canada’s Kennedy Goss (4:13.08) and Liechtenstein’s Julia Hassler (4:13.13) will swim in the final on Saturday night in Taipei.
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Men’s 400 IM
Russia’s Aleksandr Osipenko swam the fastest 400 IM of the morning with a 4:17.63. He sits ahead of Japan’s Daiya Seto (4:17.71) and Hungary’s Gergely Gyurta (4:18.06). The five fastest times all came from the final heat as most of the leaders cruised over the last 100 to ensure they had enough to finish the seven day meet.
Poland’s Dawid Szwedzki (4:18.43), USA’s Sean Grieshop (4:18.56), Japan’s Kosuke Hagino (4:18.64), Sweden’s Adam Paulsson (4:18.81) and USA’s Jonathan Roberts (4:18.82) will also swim in tonight’s final in Taipei. This will be Hagino’s fifth final of the meet.
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Women’s 4×100 Medley Relay
The United States used a strong morning team to swim to the one seed for tonight’s 4×100 medley relay. The team of Ali DeLoof (1:00.39), Miranda Tucker (1:08.60), Katie McLaughlin (59.03) and Veronica Burchill (55.61) swam a 4:03.63 to lead Japan (4:04.41) and Australia (4:05.10). The United States will likely use a completely new team for tonight’s final.
Japan swam with Anna Konishi (1:00.71), Reona Aoki (1:08.31), Yukina Hirayama (59.26) and Ayu Iwamoto (56.13) and could use a much stronger team tonight. Australia went full force this morning with Sian Whittaker (1:00.67), Leiston Pickett (1:07.86), Gemma Cooney (1:00.54) and Abbey Harkin (56.03).
Italy (4:06.21), Canada (4:07.08), Poland (4:07.52), Russia (4:08.86) and Germany (4:08.99) will also compete in tonight’s final.
DeLoof, Pickett, Elena Di Liddo (58.34) and Siobhan Haughey (53.53) had the fastest splits of the morning in their respective strokes.
Men’s 4×100 Medley Relay
The men’s 4×100 medley relay top eight was separated by less than two seconds as Brazil swam the fastest time with a 3:37.46. Leonardo de Deus (55.25), Felipe Monni (1:01.36), Vini Lanza (52.21) and Pedro Spajari (48.64) are seeded ahead of Lithuania (3:37.51) and Ireland (3:37.54).
Lithuania had a strong showing from Danas Rapsys (54.30), Andrius Sidlauskas (59.43), Tadas Duskinas (53.97) and Povilas Strazdas (49.81) as they held off the Irish in their heat. Ireland could be up for a medal tonight as Shane Ryan (54.97), Darragh Greene (1:00.89), Brendan Hyland (52.59) and Jordan Sloan (49.09) swam to the third seed.
Italy (3:37.96), Poland (3:38.34), United States (3:38.39), Russia (3:38.69) and Japan (3:39.22) will also swim in the final final tonight.
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